Mystery Ships.
When he gets up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night,
she’d be there
or on the way back to his room after pausing in the kitchen
for a glass of milk,
she’d be in the hallway,
with her axolotl stare.
Time after time.
Passing ships in the night.
He’d look at her, and she at him,
sometimes a twitch of understanding, affection,
then they’d both look away.
After eight years, off and on,
they were still a mystery to each other.
Her cat. Not his.
They’d never bonded.
Indolent.
I’m going to lounge around like the old ginger cat
the rest of the afternoon,
‘Indolent’ is not a bad descriptor
for the disease.
makes it sound almost amiable. good natured,
like a lazy, but lovable work-shy relation.
Other cancers are hares.
This is a tortoise.
In the afternoon it takes nana naps like me.
We are sitting across from each other
trying not to stare
looking down at our phones.
There are some paintings on the wall
but no one is looking at them.
Perhaps they are the sort of paintings
that are not meant to be looked at
but are there to establish a presence,
maintain a mood.
Then I notice the paintings,
half figurative, half abstract
in faded denim blue
with black, springy squiggles
like a cat’s whiskers
are not signed.
Perhaps the painter was half abstracted
when he painted them
& simply forgot.
Hiding Place.
Was wondering where the cat snoozed sunny afternoons
when I turned the hose on some groggy –looking gardenias
in a cloistered corner of the yard
and found out
as a cat bounded out of the bushes into the clearing
as if she were scalded
The world is a cat.
It knocks things over
that should be left standing.
It turns on you with tooth and claw
even when you are affectionate
towards it.
It draws blood,
pounces with unbridled savagery
on the weak and defenceless.
It has no shame, remorse.
When have you seen it
hang its head?
Yet, the world can surprise you
with sudden turns of affection
as it rubs against you
and purrs.
Something the photographer said about animals.
We are much more unpredictable to them
than they are to us.
We could shoot them, pet them,
kick them up the butt, out the door.
Perhaps that’s why this rescue cat eyes me
suspiciously,
sleeps with one eye open
flinches when another male approaches.
What is the cat looking for under the gate?
Perhaps the old tom two doors down trudging across the road like a sloppy sentence.
Perhaps the purr that left her mysteriously six months ago.
Or maybe she’s dreaming of the Krazy Kat cartoons she loved read to her as a kitten.
Or what the rest of her siblings are up to at the Pet Barn and whether they landed on her feet like her when she was adopted.
Or maybe she’s just curious. She’s a cat after all.
John Malone 